1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging system, and, more particularly, to a method for calibrating production printing cartridges for use in an imaging system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the use of computers for home and business purposes has increased significantly. Computer systems typically incorporate a computer monitor, a scanner, and a printer. Users frequently employ such systems for scanning, modifying, and/or creating various color documents. The documents may include personal greeting cards, photographs, pamphlets, flyers, brochures, iron-on transfers to clothing, business presentations, business cards, and other personal or business related documents. Such color documents are usually reproduced on a substrate using a personal or business printer, and distributed to various recipients, such as family or friends, or individual/business consumers. It is desirable that the reproduced documents appear consistent, notwithstanding the use of different printing cartridges.
However, a color shift usually occurs from one printing cartridge to another, and from one substrate to another, which is a common problem in color reproduction. This problem is particularly acute for photo paper printing. Accordingly, manufacturers of printing cartridges typically calibrate each production printing cartridge for many different types of substrates, each of which may thus be referred to as a factory-supported substrate. For example, each printing cartridge is typically calibrated for printing on plain paper, photo paper, coated ink jet paper, greeting card stock, transparency stock for use with overhead projectors, iron-on transfer material for use in transferring an image to an article of clothing, and back-lit film for use in creating advertisement displays and the like.
In cartridge manufacturing, each printing cartridge is calibrated individually, and the calibration information is provided in the printer's driver software for color correction of the printing cartridge. The printer driver software, also referred to as imaging driver software, is usually provided to the customer in the form of a floppy disk or CD-ROM with the purchase of the printer, and normally supports printing on many different substrates. However, if the calibration is performed on every substrate for each cartridge, the unit cost for each printing cartridge will be high, due to the labor involved in performing the calibration, as well as the cost of the substrates used in the calibration process.
What is needed in the art is a method for calibrating production printing cartridges for use in an imaging system.